Selling a house in Switzerland: the complete guide

Estimate how much you want

Even though this can still change later, I believe it is important to estimate how much you want for the house. You should try to get a rough estimate based on your knowledge of the real estate market in your location for your type of house.

It is important to know how much you want and the minimum you are prepared to sell the house for. This will help you with the next steps.

Plan necessary work before selling

Sometimes, it is necessary to do some work before selling a house.

First, you want to make sure that the house looks good when people are visiting it. So, if there are some things you have meant to fix for a while, you should fix them before the pictures and the visits.

Secondly, some things can improve the value of the house and make it more desirable. Of course, you have to strike a balance between how much you want to spend and how much it will increase the value (or desirability).

For instance, in our house, we decided to redo the shower and install a tropical shower. It was not a significant expense, but it looked much better. The old shower really needed a refresh.

Decide who will sell the house

You will also have to decide whether you will sell the house by yourself or through a real estate agency.

In Switzerland, most people sell through a real estate agency. The advantage is that they know what they are doing, and this will save you a lot of time. They also have a network that can be used to sometimes accelerate the sale. Using a real estate agency can save a lot of time.

On the other hand, their services are obviously not free. In some cases, you will pay a percentage fee based on the house value. In some cases, you will pay a fixed fee, regardless of the house value.

In our case, we sold our house with Neho. And we are quite satisfied with the process. The fee was fair in our opinion, and their responses were always swift. If you use them, you can mention our name as a referral.

It is important to note that most fixed-fee agencies will charge you an early fee regardless of whether you sell the house or not. On the other hand, percentage-based agencies are usually only charging you once they succeed in selling the house.

In any case, you should not underestimate the amount of work necessary for selling a house yourself. You will need to take all the pictures (and possibly video) yourself, you will need to upload everything on multiple websites, and you will have to keep track of calls and messages. Then, you will have to organize visits.

Another thing not many people consider is that if you are selling a house yourself and especially doing the visits yourself, you may be too emotional, whereas a real estate agent is detached. This can be an advantage.

Contact your current bank

In most cases, you will have a mortgage running for your current house. In this case, you will have to know what you will do with your current mortgage. There are multiple ways to deal with that.

The first option is to cancel your current mortgage. But if you are far from the termination date of your mortgage, you may have to pay a significant amount in interest. In general, banks expect you to pay the interest for the remaining period in full. For instance, if you have 2 years left and pay 1000 CHF per month, you will have to pay around 24,000 CHF in early termination fees. This example is only illustrative; some banks have different rules about early termination. But be careful because early termination can be expensive. You will need to ask your bank for details.

The second option is to transfer your mortgage to your new property. If you are staying with the same bank, this should be possible and is often the simplest solution. You will likely need to increase the amount of the new mortgage, and you will have to go through financial review again. If there is a significant gap between buying and selling, you may have to go through a bridge mortgage, which is a short-term mortgage if you buy a new property before selling the previous one.

Finally, the third option is to transfer your current mortgage to the buyers. Of course, the buyers have no obligation to accept your mortgage. This can be good if you do not want to keep the same mortgage (or are not buying a new house) and the conditions of your mortgage are good.

You should discuss your options with your bank early on, because many people are surprised by the penalties on termination. You should have all the cards in your hands before starting the sale.

It is also important to consider mortgage notes. If you are taking the mortgage to a new property, it means the new buyer will have to create new mortgage notes from scratch. This is very rare, but worth mentioning. In most cases, you will give the mortgage notes to the buyer.

Value the house

Once you have spoken with your bank and your real estate agent (if any), it is time to put the final price on the house.

It is an essential step because both overpriced and underpriced valuations can have negative consequences. An overpriced property will not get any visits. And for an underpriced property, you may get some offers, but some people may also be turned off since it may seem that the sale is not reasonable.

This is where a real estate agent is very useful because they have a good grasp on the prices. If you are selling a house yourself, getting help from a real estate company just for the pricing may be interesting. Otherwise, studying the market will be necessary to get an idea of what is selling and what is not.

Prepare the house for the pictures

These days, all offers are online. And all offers need good pictures and potentially either a video or a virtual visit.

For this, you will need to thoroughly clean the house and the outside. I think that the house must be even better for the pictures than for the visits because you want to inspire intent to buy. While people visiting your house already have the intent to buy.

You should try to make your house look its best, but you should also try to make it look a bit anonymous. You should avoid family pictures and complex decorations, for instance. The idea is that the buyer can project what they want into the house. They do not buy your house to live in it like this; they buy your house to make it theirs.

In our case, we went really minimalist when preparing the house, and most small stuff was taken away for the pictures. It took us a long time to prepare the house, but the result was really nice.

If you have a real estate agent, they will organize the pictures for you and, ideally, a virtual visit. If you do it yourself, you will need to either hire a photographer or take the photos yourself. If you want to do a virtual visit yourself, you will need to hire a specialized company. But be cautious that if you have bad pictures of a good house, it is unlikely that people will visit it. So, the pictures are essential.

Put the house up for sale

Once you have all the information and the pictures ready, you need to put the house up for sale. If you are using a real estate agent, you should not have to do much. Once they get the ad ready, you will have the chance to review it before it goes live. Then, they will put it up on their portal and then put it up on all other portals as well.

If you are doing it yourself, you will need to choose on which platforms you want to put your property for sale. This could be on immoscout24 for instance. And you will need to make sure they appear on other portals. Of course, you will also need to craft a good ad.

• You need good copy to make sure the text represents the house well.
• You need good pictures (especially the cover picture).
• You have to make sure people find the correct information.
• You have to give them a way to join you so that they can ask more questions and ideally ask for a viewing.

At this point, you will officially be selling a house. Keep in mind that this ad will likely be seen by neighbors as well. So, it is probably good etiquette to tell them in advance if you have a good relationship with them.

Organize the viewings

Hopefully, you will then have some viewings.

If you are doing it yourself, you will need to be there in person to go through the house with the viewer and try to sell it. You will also need to answer all their questions. When selling, you have to be careful about your emotions; they are often in the way.

If you have an agent, they will likely do the visits themselves (although you can ask to be present). In our case, we chose not to be present to avoid any issues.

In all cases, you need to make sure that the house is ready to be viewed. It has to be clean and tidy. You are going to have a hard time selling a dirty house for a good price. One of the properties we visited a while back was dirty, and there were dead flies on a windowsill. Years after, that is the main thing we remember from this house.

Be careful that you must disclose any hidden defects that you are aware of. If you sell a house with hidden defects that you know of, you will be liable for them. So, be honest and do not try to hide anything. A hidden defect is something serious, not normal wear. One example would be water infiltration that you hide behind a shelf during the visits.

Negotiate the offers

If you are lucky enough to have multiple offers, you may be able to negotiate and try to get a higher price.

We do not have much experience on that front since we got only one good offer. But when we bought our first house, there were multiple offers, and they did a second round of asking people if they wanted to raise offers. In our case, we did raise it slightly, and we got the house.

You could, in theory, also try to negotiate even if you have a single offer. But if they are offering the selling price and there is a single offer, you do not have much ground for negotiation.

Accept an offer

After a possible round of negotiation, you will have to accept an offer. Once done, the real estate agent will have to double-check all the documents and validate the financing of the buyers.

Once this step is done, a notary will need to be chosen. In Switzerland, the buyers typically have the choice of the notary. In some cases, if they have no preference, the seller can choose one. The notary will then need to be contacted and instructed to draft a selling contract. This contract will then be presented in advance to the parties, and each party will need to give information and documents to the notary in advance.

Then, each party will work together to get an appointment at the notary to sign the contract. This may take a while because of multiple back-and-forths since up to four parties must be together.

Review the notary project

Once the notary is appointed, you will receive a notary project. This is a draft of the final sale contract for selling your property.

Even though a lot of the terms are quite complicated, I would encourage you to go over this document in detail. It is important to understand this contract since there are important clauses for both the buyers and the sellers.

Another advantage of doing it in advance is that you could spot some issues. You can then tell the notary about it, and the project can be updated. This will save some time at the signature if everything is already correct.

Reserve the house (optional)

In some cases, there is a long time between the offer and the time of the notary. In this case, some real estate agents propose to do a legal reservation of the property. If you are worried about the buyers backing out of the deal late in the process, a reservation may be a good way to ease your mind.

A legal reservation is a binding document with an advance payment. The buyers can still back out, but they will have paid an advance payment, which they will lose. This is not a mandatory step when selling a house, but it can give peace of mind to the sellers.

It is important to reinforce that this document will not force the buyers to buy the house. The party can still back out, contrary to a notary contract.

Order a CECB for the house (in some cantons)

In some cantons, the seller must provide a CECB document for the house. As of September 2025, this is the case for Vaud, Neuchâtel, and Fribourg. You should check if your canton makes this mandatory.

A CECB document is basically a certificate of energy efficiency for your house. This will give a grade on multiple criteria for your property, such as insulation and heating.

If this document is mandatory, it should be done before the notary signature. Be careful that it can take multiple weeks to get this document finalized. So, it is better to start preparing that document early on.

Prepare your power inspection document

After a house transfer, the buyer must provide a valid power inspection document (OIBT in French, NIV in German). This document validates that the house power installation follows the rules.

If this document is older than 5 years, the buyers will need to do a new one within 6 months of moving. In practice, this is not enforced, but you can have issues with insurance if something happens and it was not properly maintained.

In some cantons (like Vaud), the seller must make sure the OIBT is valid before the sale. In some cantons, like for us in Fribourg, the buyer must take care of that.

Sign the notary contract

The step that binds everything together is the notary signature. At the notary, both parties will have to sign the contract.

The contract for selling a house will be read out entirely so that each party agrees. The contract is written in a very legal form. It is not always easy to understand, so ask questions of the notary if you need him to explain them in plain language. Once read out, each party will sign it (on each page).

Once signed, this binds all parties together. The notary will then instruct the land register to do the necessary changes, such as change the owner and add some potential special additions.

It is worth mentioning what happens if the buyers back out after signing. If the buyers do not pay the full amount by the time the sale goes into effect, the sellers can either:

• Enforce the sale and get an interest on the amount that is due.
• Keep the prepayment (typically 10%) and cancel the contract.

In practice, it is very rare that this happens since everything is checked in advance to make sure things are going well. But the sellers are still well protected in case this happens. It is also worth noting that the buyers are protected as well since the sellers are not allowed to sell the house to anybody else as well until the term of the contract.

So, the notary contract is really the binding step when selling a house.

Get the prepayment money

The buyers must pay the first prepayment (typically 10%) before the signature. Once the signature is done, the notary will release this money.

The notary will first pay the real estate agent fee (if any) and then send the rest of the money to the sellers. This means that you will receive this money quickly after the signature. You are free to do what you want with this money. If you are also in the process of buying a house, it is probably a good idea to keep that money ready for the expenses of the new property.

The costs of the notary will be put on the buyers in most cases, but in some cantons, the costs are shared by both parties.

Empty and clean the house

Before giving the keys to the new owner, you will have to empty and clean the house.

Even after moving, there are often some things left because you did not want to move them to the new house. These must go. In some cases, you can discuss with the buyers about giving them (or selling them) some things. For instance, you could give them a giant sofa that does not fit well in the new property. As long as they agree in advance, this is then fine. But otherwise, the house should be empty.

And the house should be cleaned thoroughly. For that, you can either clean it yourself or get a professional cleaning crew to do it for you. It is really a matter of balance between time and money.

If some new defects appeared between the visits and the days of the sale, it is up to you to fix them.

Hand over some bills

Be careful that you will need to hand over some bills in advance of giving the keys to the new owner.

When you know when the new owner will be in the house, you should notify your electricity company to do the switch to the new owner. That way, they will know when to start billing the new owners.

You should also do the same for the water bill. In most cases, this is managed by the municipality. So, you should let the municipality know about the new owners of the house to bill them for their water usage. In some cases, you will be asked to get the counter value yourself on the day of the move and send it to the municipality.

Give the keys to the new owner

The final step of the process is to give the keys to the new owner. The idea is to go around the house (that must have been cleaned and emptied) and check that everything is in order.

If everything is in order, the previous owner will give the keys to the new owner, who then can take ownership of his new property. It is also a good time to ask questions about how things work, like heating, the kitchen appliances, or a water filter, for instance.

Usually, the real estate agent (if any) will be present for this occasion, but it is not mandatory.

This is an essential step because it really is the last time you will be in your house. Once you give out the keys and leave, this house will not be yours anymore.

Get the rest of the money

Shortly after the final date of the sale, the notary should release the rest of the money. However, you will only come third in the payment order.

The notary will first reimburse your bank for the remaining mortgage.

Then, they will constitute a provision for capital gains taxes. Indeed, if you sold the house at a higher price than you bought it, you will have to pay a tax on these capital gains. Be careful that this tax can be very high if you have not kept your house for long. Each canton has a different rate, and the tax is usually higher for short-term gains than for long-term gains.

In some cases, you can delay these capital gains. If you have sold your principal residence and have bought another house for your principal residence, you can delay these capital gains until you sell the new property. In this case, you should instruct the notary not to do the provision since this would only delay the money you would get. Some conditions may apply, so you should make sure to check with your local tax office to be sure.

Finally, the rest of the money will be sent to you. At this point, you should be good with the entire process of selling a house; you can enjoy the money left from the sale.

Handle late bills

There is one last item that is worth mentioning: late bills.

Depending on when you are selling a house, you may be getting bills over different years. This is the case for us since we sold in December. By the date of the keys handover, the house is not yours anymore. However, the land register will not be updated for potentially multiple months (in the canton of Fribourg, it is about 4 months). So, even though you may not own the house at this point, you will still be the owner on the land register for a while.

So, you may get bills the following year that are not meant for you. Therefore, you should transfer them to the new owners. This is something that the notary should mention during the signature.